Squeezed by a housing crisis that is approaching Great Depression dimensions, state and local governments have started turning their backs on “decent, safe and sanitary” standards that long guided the home-building and mortgage-lending industries. The scale of the problem they face is daunting: half of all renters nationwide were “rent burdened” in 2022, spending more than 30% of their income for housing; a record 635,000 Americans were homeless last year. But faced with such overwhelming need, elected officials are grasping at a most primitive “solution”—RVs as permanent housing—and in doing so are laying the groundwork for even bigger problems a few years hence.
A case history of such declining standards is on display in Oregon, generally, and in Deschutes County specifically. Having already amended state law a few years ago to give its counties the option of allowing accessory dwelling units (AUDs), Oregon’s legislative assembly last summer took the additional step of allowing RVs to be used as rental dwellings in rural areas. Opponents argued that the state had yet to see whether allowing AUDs would make a significant difference in the housing supply, but supporters noted that Oregon needs more than half-a-million new housing units across all income levels within the next 20 years. All possibilities should be considered. Recreational vehicles, it was argued, could take up the slack, presumably because they’re cheaper and mobile, and therefore relatively quick and easy to set up.
The “ayes” had it, producing a law that is remarkably free of restraints on allowing “vehicles . . . designed for use as temporary living quarters” to be used as permanent housing. The law does require that such RVs not be “rendered structurally immobile,” presumably so they can be removed more readily when “dilapidated or abandoned”—one of the drawbacks of “a limited useful life” cited in a legislative analysis. But the law does not require “fire hardening requirements,” as was included in the law authorizing ADUs. And it explicitly declares that RVs used as housing are “not subject to the state building code.” Indeed, virtually the only state restrictions are on which properties can be used for this new housing option, with any additional regulations left up to each county.
While Oregon’s new RV law did not go into effect until Jan. 1 of this year, Deschutes County was all over it months ago. Located in the rural middle of the state and coping with a homeless population of approximately 1,300, the county had its planning staff draft new rules last October to put some flesh on the legislative bones. The result couldn’t get more basic. For example, Oregon defines “vehicles used as temporary living quarters” as having, “at minimum, cooking and sleeping facilities that may be permanently set up or connected to the vehicle, or may be stored within or upon the vehicle with the intent to use within or upon the vehicle”—a definition, alert readers will note, that makes no reference to toilet facilities. Planning staff therefore included, as “additional standards under consideration,” a requirement that “the RV must have an operable toilet and sink.”
That’s what you call a low bar. Meanwhile, the “additional standards under consideration” make no mention of the clear allowance for outdoor kitchens, don’t set a minimum square-foot-per-occupant standard, don’t address what kind of utility hookups will be required, don’t even call for fire extinguishers or smoke alarms—and certainly don’t set up an inspection protocol to ensure the standards are being met.
Planning commissioners met Jan. 11, and again Jan. 25, to review the staff’s proposals as well as three dozen or so written public comments, almost all opposed to the whole idea. Many commenters took issue with the basic rationale for the RV initiative, pointing out that increased housing density on rural land won’t help people who need jobs and social services that tend to be located in urban areas. Many also noted that new RV dwellers would place additional demands on infrastructure and municipal services, such as fire protection, police, and ambulance services, without any offsetting increase in tax revenues. And others expressed concerns about increased demand on ground water supplies, the greater fire hazard associated with growth in the urban-wildland interface, and the loss of a rural lifestyle caused by a potential doubling of the population.
But perhaps the most telling criticism, echoing a concern raised by the legislative analysis last summer, is that counties like Deschutes simply don’t have the resources to enforce whatever rules they adopt. RVs on private property are already becoming prevalent, many complained, in defiance of existing zoning restrictions and without any enforcement by an overburdened county government. “We have lots here that look like homeless encampments, with not enough code enforcement now,” wrote Mark and Jane Odegard, reflecting a common observation. “We are a residential community, not a campground.”
Craig Heaton echoed the sentiment, complaining of “several RVs, campers, fifth wheels and small sheds ” on nearby properties. “It is quite common to smell the sewage. Extension cords from the house to these makeshift quarters are present. Year after year I’ve filed complaints with Deschutes County” to no avail, he added.
Apparently taking these and other concerns to heart, the planning commission rejected its staff’s proposals—but only by the narrowest of margins, voting 4-3 against permitting use of RVs as supplemental housing. But it also left the door open for further consideration, via a work session with the county’s commissioners on Feb. 28 to determine whether to hold a public hearing on the matter. Should that happen, it will be interesting to see who in the RV industry will step up and point out all the truly horrific reasons why this is a bad idea—ha-ha-ha! Just kidding!
The problems of exorbitant housing prices and exploding homelessness are real and tragic, and cry out for effective intervention—but putting people into firetraps with scarcely more floor space than a prison cell is not it. All that will accomplish is a dispersed slum of rapidly deteriorating eyesores, transforming Deschutes County into an Oregon version of the worst of West Virginia, also a once truly magnificent landscape.
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